Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Independent)
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901. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the position in relation to a time frame to achieve the 0.7% in Official Development Assistance in foreign aid; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21849/15]

Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)
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911. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his plans to implement the 0.7% United Nations development goal for Official Development Assistance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22262/15]

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 901 and 911 together.

The Government is strongly committed to Ireland’s overseas aid programme, which is at the heart of our foreign policy. This is clearly articulated in both ‘The Global Island - Ireland’s Foreign Policy for a Changing World’, and in our policy on International Development, ‘One World, One Future’. We have reaffirmed our commitment to the UN target of providing 0.7% of Gross National Product (GNP) for Official Development Assistance (ODA), and to making further progress towards it when economic circumstances permit.

Over the past four years, in the context of severe economic difficulty, we successfully managed to stabilise allocations to the aid programme. I believe this to have been a major achievement for the Government. For 2015, we have again protected overall allocations to the aid programme, and provided a total of just over €600 million for ODA.

Last month, at the meeting of EU Development Ministers in the Foreign Affairs Council, which I attended in Brussels, the EU recommitted to providing 0.7% of collective GNP in Official Development Assistance. At the meeting, Ireland played a strong role in helping broker the agreement to achieve the target within the timeframe of the post-2015 development agenda.

As our economic recovery continues to consolidate and strengthen, the challenge now is to determine how best we can make sustainable progress towards the UN target, as we continue to build on Ireland’s world-class aid programme by ensuring we make an effective contribution to the fight to end extreme poverty and hunger. I will be making the strongest possible case for an increase in the budget for the aid programme for 2016.